Adam Hunt

Where are you located? LIFT here in Toronto has an Oxberry specifically designed for this.

Not available in Canada either. You should be able to view it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ekwh5O_wZu8

I've seen this video before, but it still amazes me how much fine craftsmanship goes into making these cameras.

I don't think that's true at all. IMAX has strong ticket sales these days and many parties have a lot invested in it. Even if Kodak went under, which naysayers have been declaring is eminent for like 6 or 7 years now and I am not at all sold on, I'm sure Fuji would step up. Think about it, IMAX is not going to just wash their hands of something that is making them money and close up all their theatres. Nor are the studios going to stop making DMRs when they get a premium in ticket prices from them. Without Kodak they would just turn to Fuji. Yeah, it's not the biggest market in the world, but from Fuji's point of view it would be a sudden 300-400% increase in their film sales. That's pretty damn good, even for a niche market. I thought it was more than that already. Besides we are talking about acquisition format here, not exhibition format. Yeah traditional 70mm exhibition is few and far between these days, but then again IMAX is gaining in popularity, and a DMR from a 65mm negative is better than a DMR from a 35mm negative or any of the digital formats. In fact any exhibition format can gain from 65mm acquisition. Digital post these days means that your shooting format is not tied to your exhibition format, you can "print" from anything to anything these days, so just because true 5-perf 70mm projection may not be around it does not mean there is no benefit to 65mm acquisition. But, although rare, 70mm is far from gone. Here in Toronto the brand-new purpose-built TIFF Lightbox was outfitted with 5 screens that all have 5-perf 70mm projection, as well as 35mm, 4k digital, and even 16mm projection.

Ok, 99.9998% then. Actually, to be fair it's not all a fanboy board. If you are regularly shooting with RED and need to exchange info and tips about the cameras themselves then it's a good place. I mean it is called REDUSER after all, and as far as I know that's why that board was started. I was really talking about it's use outside of that (but I generalized too much). I'm not a RED user, nor will I be at any point in the foreseeable future. Even if the option for me to shoot 35mm film were not feasible, there would be several other digital acquisition options that I would choose ahead of it. And because I don't hold the opinion that "RED is the be all and end all" I don't think my presence would be at all welcome over there.

Maybe not to the point of it's heyday, but it is making some kind of a comeback. More and more major films are popping up with segments shot in 5-perf 65mm. Shutter Island, The Tree Of Life, Inception, Unknown, and The Master all shot partial 65mm, and there is of course the 100% 65mm Samsara. There was even a recent foreign film, Nanga Parbat, shot partially in 65mm, and rumours of a Bollywood film or two slated for some 65mm scenes. There may be some other recent films I am missing as well. Oh, and according to IMDb Pro The Mad Trapper is slated for partial 65mm. Add to them major films shot partially in IMAX: The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Transformers 2, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. And then there are rumours of The Master being 100% 65mm, and The Dark Knight Rises being anything from mostly IMAX, to 100% IMAX, to an IMAX/65mm mix. That is hardly a format on life support. This trend seems to be steadily building, so it will be interesting to see what is on the horizon. Even if The Master is not 100% 65mm, I have a feeling we will see a new 100% 65mm film come out of Hollywood very soon.

At the risk of starting an argument: I'm not a RED fanboy, nor do I like to have "discussions" with fanboys. In fact they are one of my least favourite things on the internet. So I have no need to join a 100% fanboy board. Let's just leave it at that. I found contact info for the guy and sent him a nice message asking him if he could clear things up for us about what The Master is shooting. Hopefully he can do so. I am super curious. A new 100% 65mm production would be great to see.

Something interesting over on REDUSER: A thread about The Dark Knight Rises being shot in IMAX. The thread moves from "IMAX is awesome" to "we should convince Christoper Nolan to shoot with RED" to "people who still shoot on film are idiots". Blah, blah, blah... But then something interesting near the end: Somebody says they worked on PT Anderson's new film while it shot in Hawaii and that "it was 65mm". Interesting when previous discussion was about mixing 35mm anamorphic and 65mm IMAX that he just stated "it was 65mm". Does anybody have a membership over at REDUSER and can contact this guy to confirm if it was all 65mm or a mix? REDUSER thread

I was responding to a question someone asked before the IMDb page was changed. That should be very clear since I quoted the question.

That particular 70mm format was pioneered by Panavision. The 765 shoots the same format, however due to trademark issues (I assume), Arri usually calls it something else. But really it's the same format so it's not uncommon to see things on IMDb listed as Arri 765 and "Panavision System 65" as the cinematographic process.

WARNING THIS VIDEO CONTAINS GRAPHIC VIOLENCE. (It's Eminem. What did you expect?) I have to say I think the cinematography in this video is pretty phenomenal. http://vimeo.com/25675258 A colleague told me this was shot with a RED MX, but I was suspicious. It looks like 35mm to me. I found the official post on Vimeo and it credits "telecine" so I'd say it's 35mm. Anybody have any behind the scenes knowledge and know for sure?

Yup, most of the consumer plasmas are even capable of 10-bit colour and wide-gamut xvYcc colour-space. I don't know of any LCD panels that support that.

It's because you don't have the TV calibrated correctly and/or the right colour profile set on your computer. There is very little difference between the panels in an LCD TV and an LCD computer monitor.

Well that's good to hear. I wish you guys had a branch here in Toronto.

And while we're on the subject of tapeless. Do you know how many masters for both DVD and Blu-ray projects still get sent to me on tape? Tapeless is so much easier but it seems so many still like their tape.

I would LOVE if they were dated. For higher-end clients that's true, but not for the indie world. Places like Technicolor or Deluxe offer tapeless dailies, and have for quite a while, but charge a premium for it and don't offer it to indie filmmakers. There seems to be some dragging of the heals to offer tapeless HD-DIs because well, after all if you can afford tapeless then chances are you're going 2k anyway so there really isn't a lot of point in a tapeless HD-DI. I remember pushing to just get the VFX shots tapeless for an HD-DI project I worked on years ago. I knew they had a hard-drive based recorder that recorded in DPX files that they often used as an intermediate step between telecine and tape anyway, and I asked for the DPX files to simply be copied to an external hard-drive instead of going out to tape and then being recaptured back to drive somewhere else and I got puzzled looks like I was asking for something ridiculous. No tape? What do you mean? For you guys I'm sure it's tapeless everything at this point. But when you call Technicolor or Deluxe, and others and try and quote an indie film's DI you still get offered tapes as the only affordable option. It happened to me a week ago. They assured me that they could do it despite the HDCAM SR shortage (which I pressed all of them about). Hopefully that will push them into going tapeless, but it seems not yet, at least not for indie productions. The reality is for a lot of shorts dailies and final transfer are the same thing. And that transfer almost always ends up as Uncompressed QTs, DNxHD, and more often ProRes, but it gets there from a tape. It seems like an unnecessary step to me, but it's still what goes on. I totally respect what you guys do, and you guys are definitely keeping on the edge as far as using the most up-to-date workflows but tape-based HD is still what most indie filmmakers are being offered. You seemed to imply yourself that you guys were a bit above what most indie productions could afford. When what indie filmmakers are being offered catches up to the kind of workflows you guys use now it will be a good day, but as of a week ago anyway it doesn't seem to have happened yet. And don't even get me started about tapeless exhibition! For the big productions D-Cinema is a no-brainer. But when a D-Cinema package costs about 3/4 or more of the price of a 35mm print, HDCAM is the only real "cost effective" options for most indie shorts. I was trying to give advice tuned to what Fhj Ais probably has available to him when making an indie short. That's all.

Anything LCD is not good for colour-correction. Plasma is an option. Plasma can actually reproduce the intricate black details you need for a good colour job, LCD can't. Plasmas are sensitive to burn-in though so you need to be careful of that and not leave any still images on the screen too long. The burn-in problem means you can't use it as your primary monitor, but ideally for colour work you want a primary monitor (such as a nice medium size LCD) to work off of, while the plasma is connected to your second monitor output (via HDMI) and shows a full-screen preview of the image.

I like the stylized look of the final composite. Keep up the good work!

According to Kodak it is Kodachrome and from 1922. Keep in mind though that this is an internal Kodak test, so even though actual Kodachrome was not introduced until 1935 they would have been experimenting with it long before that. Kodak also claims it is "some of the earliest colour motion picture film you will see" which would fit with the 1922 date which precedes the 2-colour 35mm process.

Absolutely right! I missed that. Now that you mention this, I remember reading all of this a year or two ago when I was trying to recreate the 2-colour look for a project.

Hi Chris. The films that Kodak makes in Super 8 are: Tri-X: This is a black and white film. It is usually processed as a reversal film but can also be processed as a negative film (although it's not terribly common). Ektachrome: This is a colour-reversal film. (negative/reversal explained below). Vision3 films: These are colour-negative films. There are two speeds available: 200 and 500. The number indicates the speed of the films or ASA or ISO. The higher the number the more sensitive the film and the less light it needs. For instance the Ektachrome is 100ASA which is easier to use in bright sunlight, but you would be better off using 500 speed vision3 in low-light conditions. The high-speed films are more sensitive in low-light but trade-off some sharpness and add some grain to achieve that. The difference between reversal films and negative films is that reversal processing turns the original piece of film into a positive image which can be projected with a super8 projector. Negative films on the other hand produce a negative image which is of better quality but can't be projected and is intended for transfer to video (although reversal films can easily be transferred to video as well). Some cheaper consumer super8 cameras may have problems with the newer vision3 negative stocks because they are somewhat thicker. And you really need to use a light-meter with them rather than the autoexposure built into the camera. To start out I would recommend getting a roll or two of either Tri-X (if you want black and white) or Ektachrome (if you want colour) and trying it out. You just basically pop the cartridge in the camera and go. Once you are are used to the general use of super8 you can move on to the vision3 negative films. You can watch Tri-X or Ektachrome in a super8 projector, which really is the best-looking way to see it. Then you can get that same film transferred to video. I don't know what options are available where you are because all super-8 transfer is done by independent places and the availability, quality and price will vary widely depending on your location. One thing to watch is to avoid small operations like 'home movies to DVD' or anything that mentions 'home movies'. They use something called a film-chain method. Basically they just projected it onto a screen and point a video camera at the screen. It makes an image, but it's no-where near as good as the various 'frame by frame' methods that more professional operations use. You can do the 'film chain' method yourself if you have a super8 projector, a screen, and a video camera. But it can be frustrating and the image quality wont be great. Also you will only be able to transfer reversal films this way (the ektachrome or tri-x) and not the negative films. If you want to get a good job done I would recommend mailing your film to Frame Discreet here in Toronto. It would be better if you could find a place like them in the UK, but I can't really help you in that respect since I only know what is available in Canada.

Some fun stuff: And here is what Kodak has yet again re-purposed it's Kodacolor brand name for.

I think that other website mistakenly shows a box of the later available Kodacolor when it was in fact it was Kodachrome that was introduced into the amateur movie market in 1923. The famous Technicolor process which was first introduced in 2-colour/2-strip and later 3-colour/3-strip in 1923 and 1932 respectively. It was never available in 16mm, only 35mm. Kodak's own site clearly states it was a colour-reversal process introduced into the amateur movie market in 1923 while 2-strip Technicolor was introduced into the pro market the same year. The process you speak of above was marketed under the Kodacolor name although it was something totally different than the negative films Kodak made for decades afterward under the same Kodacolor name. It was introduced in 1928. I did a little research since my last post, so it seems you were right Simon, the first Kodacolor was a reversal film but it was preceded by Kodachrome which came to 16mm a few years earlier. Although this was actually not the same as the K-12 and K-14 Kodachromes made later (K-14 being made until 2009). Kodak's chronology of film Wikipedia on Kodacolor reversal film Wikipedia on Kodacolor negative film The first reference in Kodak's chronology to 16mm black and white negative was 7229 in 1963. They don't make reference to a colour-negative film for 16mm until 1983 with 7291, but it doesn't explicitly say it was introduced then and obviously some people who have posted remember that there was 16mm colour-negative before that. Perhaps it is the Kodak chronology that originated that 80s rumour.

Sorry Simon, but Kodacolor was in fact negative film. The super-famous Kodachrome was a reversal film. In fact it is pretty standard practice for film manufacturers to use brand names ending in chrome to represent colour-reversal films: Kodachrome, Fujichrome, Agfachrome. And brand names ending in color to represent colour-negative films: Kodacolor, Fujicolor, Agfacolor. Although, I believe Kodachrome was introduced in 1929, and Kodacolor didn't come along until 1942. I'm not sure if it was available in 16mm or even 35mm motion picture stock at that time. I know in the world of still photography it was first introduced in larger 620 roll film and didn't debut in 35mm roll film until 1958.

Some of this has been said already, but I figured I'd way in a bit here with some of my experiences. There are many options, so I will try to categorize them a bit. It starts with major options, you have 4 (well 2 really these days): #1 Traditional 16mm->35mm blow-up: Not done very often at all these days, doesn't afford you the colour-control of a DI and is very hard to find. It requires creating a cut-list from video dailies which are then used to cut the negative, before being enlarged. #2 Traditional 2k DI The most quality you can get in a DI. Each frame of the film is scanned as an image file and stored on a hard drive array. This method has better resolution and colour-depth than an HD-DI, but is usually quite a bit more expensive. This process requires that you transfer the film to a video tape format first which you then create and EDL and list of select cuts from so that only the frames that are used in your final film will be scanned with the expensive 2k scanner. Then the scanned frames are taken into a non-linear DI suite and colour corrected. This is the best option for 35mm prints, but again it's also the most expensive. #3 HD Telecine (often called and HD-DI these days) This is an economical alternative to a 2k DI. You colour the film in a telecine suite rather than a DI suite (a little bit different) while it is being transferred from the negative to high-definition tape. This is often done as selects from a previous standard definition transfer. However that is more common with features, and with shorts the house will often transfer everything directly to HD tape the first time because it is cheaper and easier than doing two transfers. This is starting to happen with more and more features as well. This is really the best option if you are only going to HD tape in the end and not doing a film print. It can and often is used for film prints as well, and although HD-DI film prints can look very good they are not quite the quality of a true 2k DI. Note: You will be transferring to 1 of 3 tape formats: HD-D5 (rare these days), HDCAM SR, or HDCAM. HD-D5 and HDCAM SR are suitable for making film prints from. Plain HDCAM is a compromise in quality, but can be used in a pinch. However in practice NOT with 16mm. HDCAM has a relatively high amount of compression that seriously emphasizes the grain in 16mm, making it look much noisier than it actually is, so the 16mm/HDCAM combination is rarely used as a master (it is used as an exhibition format though). #4 Standard-definition telecine Exact same thing as an HD-DI just to standard-definition tape (almost always Digital Betacam). Not really a great option as a final product. Most festivals these days want HD so having your film in only SD is not really the best idea unless you absolutely can't afford anything else. This process is usually used for dailies on features, but few things are finished SD-only these days. Realistically the average indie short shot on 16 or 35mm gets finished as option #3, an HD-DI. Often there are no SD dailies. You just send the film to the lab/transfer house and get see your footage for the first time as you colour-correct it to HDCAM SR. You then get the tapes captured to HD Quicktimes which you edit in Final Cut Pro. The sound is then sent to the sound editor, who sends back stems, the final piece may get a minor colour 'touch-up' in an NLE then it's married with the audio stems and send back out to tape. Usually an HDCAM SR master for safe keeping and then either to a 35mm film print (if there is the budget) or to plain HDCAM as an exhibition format. Large festivals might only accept 35mm prints, D-Cinema or HDCAM tapes. Smaller festivals (and some large festivals for their shorts programme only) will accept Digital-Betacam. Even smaller festivals may accept Beta SP, DV, or DVD. But keep in mind: anything not HD will look very, very soft when blown up to a big screen. And anything but high-end professionally-authored DVDs will look really crummy. More and more festivals accept Blu-ray as an exhibition format. But you run into the same problem you do with DVD: anything "cheap" looks terrible. Although HDCAM may be a bit more expensive than a cheapo Blu-ray it will be of decent quality and much cheaper than a good looking Blu-ray. I tried to simplify the options as much as possible, so if you didn't find the above info clear, you should consider getting yourself a good post-production supervisor. They will be there to walk you through these options and handle the technical side of things when dealing with the lab. In fact, even if you do understand this stuff they are still valuable because they often have worked with the labs in town before and know what the best deals and options are. Hope this helped.